1 Thessalonians 2.14-19
(Epistle)
14For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews
15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men,
16forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
17But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great desire,
18because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us.
19For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus at his coming?
Romans 9.18-33
(Epistle, Prophet Hosea)
18So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.
19You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?”
20But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
21Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor?
22What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
23and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory—
24us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?
25As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.”
26“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”
27Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved;
28for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”
29As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”
30What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith;
31but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness.
32Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”
Luke 9.12-18
(Gospel)
12The day began to wear away; and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding villages and farms and lodge and get food, for we are here in a deserted place.”
13But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we should go and buy food for all these people.”
14For they were about five thousand men. He said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”
15They did so, and made them all sit down.
16He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to the sky, he blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.
17They ate and were all filled. They gathered up twelve baskets of broken pieces that were left over.
18As he was praying alone, the disciples were near him, and he asked them, “Who do the multitudes say that I am?”